Hard drive trouble

I just hooked up a used 120 GB hard drive. The formatting wizard came up, but it gave me no option but to format the drive at 78.5 GB. I lose 35% of the space!
After formatting, 66.8MB of the drive was used up, so formatting itself didn't do it.
The hard drive is a Western Digital moded. It is listed as 'WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0.' So that's a Western Digital 1200JB.

Don't know what the problem is . . . and don't know how to reformat using something different, if that's what the trouble is.

Have you been to Western Digitals website and downloaded the Data lifeguard tools?

You might have to run Fdisk on the drive and check the partitions.

WTR, as previously stated, it may have already had partitions on it. Before using the lifeguard tools, right clik my computer and goto manage. Goto the Disk Management on the left hand side. It will list drives, their partitions and formatted style. ie....fat32, ntfs.

See if the drive lists correctly in disk management. If so, it probably shows 1-3 different partitions. Just delete them all and create one big one. My suggestion, since its used, do a full format on it, it takes longer but clears out small probs that may arise.

If it lists right and the new partitioning just wont work right to the size, then get the datatools from WD website and run a diag on it. It will list any probs and you can sign up for an RMA with the info from that test.

Silver

Here's a snap of my Disk management thing:



It says there's 78.5GB there as well.

On WD's download page the very first one on the left hand list and then the very first one on the right hand list is the one I downloaded, 'Data Lifeguard Tools 11.2 for Windows.' I'll run this and see if it helps.

I think it's figured out. I deleted the partions and then re-formatted.

And at apc's request, props to apc!

But 7Ayreon helped more than apc, anyway . . .

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks

It says there's 78.5GB there as well.

Read the first column. Disk 1 111.79GB which for a 120Gb drive sounds right, you have partitioned your drive with a 78GB partition and 33GB unpartitioned.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
I think it's figured out. I deleted the partions and then re-formatted.

And at apc's request, props to apc!

But 7Ayreon helped more than apc, anyway . . .

PSH!

PSH I SAY!

I didnt see apc or 7ayreons post on this thread. Guess you got help elsewhere. Glad you acknowledged the ones that DID post here with help. /sarcasm

Now with that said, I am truly glad you got your problem fixed, one way or another.

S1LV3R4D0, or course I was going to acknowledge the help fo the people who posted in this thread. It was just a question of when.

A big thanks to S1LV3R4D0 and DarkStormCrow! The only people who cared enough to post in my thread! *glares at each and every individual member-name listed in the 'search members' section*

Now, does anyone know how I could create a dynamic backup with this new disk? So as soon as I make a change to a file on the original hard drive, the change will also be made to the backup copy on the new hard drive.
I think 'dynamic backup' is right.

You could probably run a RAID 1 which would mirror everything from disk 1 -> disk 2 however im not sure if you need disks o the same size or not. Alternatively you could look at something like rsync.

Yeah RAID 1 needs identical drives.

wtr: why does it need to be instantaneous? For typical users with critical data backup needs, nightly backups is sufficient. Windows Backup (in your System Tools programs menu) should suffice.

Heh, sorry bout that, yesterday was my daughters birthday and the EX was being a biscuit. Guess i was being a buthead. I apologize.

Edn has the right idea, but Raid1 has to have 2 identical drives. And in the creation of that Raid, all data might be destroyed. Its best to setup raids before loading the OS. Im not sure if there is software that will mimic that kinda setup or not, ill look into it and see what i find. Even so, without a chipset raid and doing it software-wise, it will probably slow your system down tremendously. But i could be wrong. Ill post back here with what i find.

Silver